The present invention relates to a hand-held tape dispenser with tape positioning structure, and more particularly to a hand-held tape dispenser having means for holding a free end of a cut tape in place to facilitate convenient use of the tape next time.
A conventional hand-held tape dispenser is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 and typically includes a main body 1 having a handle, a tape reel 11 provided at a rear side of the main body 1, a roller 12 provided at a front side of the main body 1, a front plate 13 located above the roller 12, a blade 14 located above the front plate 13, and a holding-down plate 15 located above and substantially normal to the blade 14. The blade 14 is connected to the front plate 13 with a spring to elastically move forward and backward relative to the front plate 13. To use the conventional hand-held tape dispenser, a free end of a roll of tape 2 mounted on the tape reel 11 is pulled to pass below the roller 12 and attach to a surface of, for example, a packing box. By pressing and rotating the roller 12, a desired length of tape 2 is firmly adhered to the packing box. Thereafter, the tape dispenser is lifted to press the holding-down plate 15 against the tape 2 applied on the packing box. At this point, the depressed holding-down plate 15 pushes the blade 14 forward to extend beyond the front plate 13 and cut the tape 2.
Since the tape 2 on the hand-held tape dispenser has an adhesive side facing downward, and there is not any means to hold the tape 2 below the roller 12 in place, a free end of the cut tape 2 depends from the roller 12 and tends to stick to other surface or corrugate into a mass. When the tape 2 is to be used next time, the corrugated free end must be cut off and pulled straight. This is, of course, very inconvenient to the user and has adverse influence on the packing efficiency.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a hand-held tape dispenser with tape positioning structure, so that a free end of the tape on the tape dispenser having been cut by the blade is closely held by the tape positioning structure to the front plate below the blade without depending from the roller and could be directly used for packing next time without the need of pulling it straight.
The tape positioning structure includes two sideward projections near rear ends of two sides of the blade, and two L-shaped plates fixed to two sides of the blade. Each of the two L-shaped plates has a hooked front end exposed from one side of a front plate located below the blade. When the blade is pushed forward by the holding-down plate to cut the dispensed tape, the hooked front ends of the L-shaped plates move forward at the same time to hook up a free end of the cut tape, and when the holding-down plate is released and the blade retracts, the cut tape is held by the hooked front ends of the retracted L-shaped plates to the front plate for use next time.